Where Liberalism Is Alive and Well!

STOP RAPE NOW – Teach Your Children, Damn It!

With the horrible news of Lara Logan’s brutal assault and rape in Egypt, maybe we can use this horrific event to help educate young and old people that it has to stop now, goddamn it. Having grown up in a household with a very strong mother, who taught her 5 boys respect for all people and engrained in us the fact that every living being is worthy of respect, I can’t even fathom how someone could hurt another like that. Raping or sexually assaulting someone (overwhelmingly women) is the ultimate in disrespect of another human being. It robs them of their humanity and the effects are long lasting and in many cases permanent. My wife was raped twice in her life, the first time was when she was 14 years old (unreported) and the second time was at gun point by an ex-boyfriend when she was 36 years old (he went to jail for a few days).

As men, we have to stand up to these violent men and change the culture that allows them to somehow think it is OK to do this. People who rape almost always learned it from someone else, a parent, a relative, a friend, a pastor, a fraternity brother, a video game, a movie…oh man, it’s built right into our culture in many ways and it’s about goddamn time it stopped. Penalties for rape need to be harsh and just as brutal as the crime. There has to be consequences for these horrific actions, a price needs to be paid in order to send a message to people with these violent urges. It is a crime of violence, not sex. Domination and control, not arousal and it is never, ever justified no matter what the situation. NEVER!

But the simple truth is that the only culture that is responsible for this is human culture.

In far too many minds, all over the world, a female human is little more than an outlet or repository for male wishes or power (take a look at ABL’s post, below). Rape is regularly and consistently used as a weapon of war. Rape is regularly and consistently used as a method of control.

But rape is also just regular and consistent. Men rape for no reason other than that they think they can get away with it — all the time, every day. Doctors rape, clergymen rape, husbands rape, boyfriends rape, employers rape, “dates” rape. Sometimes they employ tricks and ploys and intoxicants in order to convince themselves that what they’re doing is not (as Whoopi Goldberg so memorably put it) “RAPE rape” — but if she said no, or couldn’t say no, or was too afraid to say no? It’s RAPE rape. It’s all rape.

And lots of times, rapists don’t even bother to convince themselves. They wanted a vagina, and there was one in the room. They wanted to bond with their boys, and a vagina walked by. They wanted to show that bitch, or prove their worth, or relieve themselves, or take what any man in his right mind would take. RAPE rape.

I hate to get political on the subject, but our friends in the Republican Party certainly aren’t helping to curtail it by sending messages like this…from Raw Story…

The broad anti-abortion measure would restrict federally-assisted abortion coverage to cases of “forcible rape,” excluding in that definition instances where women are drugged and raped, where women say “no” but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, and various cases of date rape. It also excludes instances of statutory rape in which minors are impregnated by adults. The victim in all cases would be denied abortion coverage under Medicaid and forbidden from seeking health care tax benefits.

Now they’ve since backed off on that language, but the message was very clearly sent to those men who think that drugging a girl or getting her drunk isn’t really “forcible rape”…right? Is it any wonder that our culture is so fucked up, white men have been running this country for way too long. My step father, a very wise man – may he rest in peace – used to frequently say that if women controlled the country, it would be a much better place. My parents gave a lot of money to Emily’s List.

STOP RAPE NOW! Speak out whenever you hear a man insinuate (or blatantly say) that it is OK and be forceful, don’t let it stand. And for goodness sake, teach your children to respect all people no matter who they are and engrain in them the golden rule, which appears in many forms in almost all religions “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Thank you so much for posting this here, and for your own very important words as well. It’s crucial that men stand strong on these issues, absolutely crucial.

As you can tell, this post is something that came from very deep inside me, and I can only echo what you said:

STOP RAPE NOW! Speak out whenever you hear a man insinuate (or blatantly say) that it is OK and be forceful, don’t let it stand. And for goodness sake, teach your children to respect all people no matter who they are and engrain in them the golden rule, which appears in many forms in almost all religions “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

You are very welcome and thank you for your eloquent words. As you can tell, it’s personal to me too…my wife will never forget what happened to her. I have a new granddaughter that I don’t want to ever go through anything like that and our society has to change, NOW!

Penalties for rape need to be harsh and just as brutal as the crime. There has to be consequences for these horrific actions, a price needs to be paid in order to send a message to people with these violent urges. It is a crime of violence, not sex.

Well the republicans are too busy trying to change the definition of rape to really care about these sort of trivialities. Either way rape can just as easily happen to men just look at prison for example. Its also doubtlessly very under reported.

Rape is most often not sexual as much as a power trip over someone weaker. I used to hire construction workers through Project Rio in Texas where the state paid half of the hourly wages of recently paroled convicts. Over nearly a decade, I had over two dozen of these men in my employ. I had to work hand-in-glove with their parole officers, so in essence I was doing a service to the state as I had to report anytime they did not show up for work, etc. I also became a go-to person for some counseling.

Since I was a “out” contractor, several confided in me about their prison rape which sounded very prevalent but a taboo subject. Most claimed to be straight so rape for them was especially painful. One young guy, was traded around for cigarettes and other commodities. One night he went to “movie night” in the prison gymnasium and made the mistake of going to the toilet where he was held for over an hour and constantly raped by many men who were coming and going (probably going out into the crowd then to inform others that there was sex in the bathroom). He told me that the guards never came in and probably “knew” what was going on. Anyway, you don’t ever “snitch” to guards that you were raped. He felt guards often turned their heads (or some even liked to watch) as there was a belief that rape reduced sexual anxieties, at least for the rapists. Even though this young man was gay and not a virgin, he said rape was nothing like loving, consensual sex, that instead it was most often very brutal, and demeaning. He continued to bleed for several days after the gang rape.

I kept up with several of my workers after they left my employ and I was quite proud that most all did not return to prison. Most were young, first-time offenders. Getting a job right away after release, and my treating them like human beings may have helped steer them straight. The young man who was gang raped at a movie, I found out died a few years later from AIDS, so who knows if he didn’t get infected in prison. He went to prison for kiting hot checks and for that possibly got the death penalty.

Prisons seems to harden people in this nation, gutting any self worth a person may have had. No wonder we have such a high rate of recidivism here. Prisons are big business, get a lot of money to “warehouse” human beings.

Yea, because men only have power in America, right? In America, they happen to be white men in control and maybe you don’t know what it is like in our country.

And I wasn’t aware that Noam Chomsky supported rape, which is what the post was about in case you missed that part.

Maybe you just need to read more carefully, because I didn’t “angle my piece towards the inherent’problem’ of white American men…” The angle of my piece was to STOP RAPE and for men to stand up to it. I think that is pretty clear to anyone reading this post, except maybe someone who has a reason to defend rapists.

I just had to say thank you! We need more men to respect us. . .I never thought it would happen to me, but it did. . .I was raped by someone I knew. Never did I think it would happen, even with all the male sexual harassment in my neighborhood and school.

Who The Hell Am I!

I’m a liberal that is extreme in some ways and not in others. I support President Obama and make no apologies for it. I think he has done a phenomenal job, especially when you consider that he inherited a huge mess and has faced unprecedented opposition from a lazy & desperate Republican Party. I’m a film producer/director/editor, adjunct professor, technician, media critic and photographer when I’m not reading left wing blogs and typing on this one. – On Twitter @ExtremeLiberal or Email at liberalforreal (at) gmail.com

Own An Important Part Of American History!

Cicely Tyson narrates this award winning documentary that tells the story of African American migration from the old south to the prosperous north. Winner of 5 Awards including "Best Film" at the Astoria International Film Festival, the "Paul Robeson Award" at the Newark Black Film Festival and "Best Film Relating To The Black Experience" at the XXV International Black Cinema Berlin/Germany!